


Carry

by Phosphorite



Series: post-series giveaway companion [3]
Category: Free!
Genre: Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3620964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phosphorite/pseuds/Phosphorite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's silly, but thinking about it makes it easier, like part of him is in that moment too.</p>
<p>[post-series one-shot in a collection of stories written for my giveaway]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry

**Author's Note:**

> It took me way longer to continue with my giveaway companion fics than I ever meant to. I've had this story sitting around for literally forever, but I didn't get around to finishing it until now; I guess because I wanted to keep it as compact as the other two are, and because in the process it turned out far more personal than I ever thought. But I guess that's always just a sign of writing from the heart.
> 
> I hope someone enjoys how it turned out.

 

 

It’s the twins’ idea, really.

When his hands first reach out with the light green handheld like a sacrificial offering, Haruka stares at it for a full minute without saying a word.

He wants to follow up with something explanatory; something that the twins told him, like _think of all the street pass hits!_ or, _won’t it be cool to see what kind of people he runs into while abroad!_ , but they’d roll off his tongue like a stilted advertisement ad, and so all he says is this:

_Please take this with you when you leave. You don’t need to do anything – just carry it around wherever you go._

Haruka still stares at it like a piece of Ming dynasty china, until finally he nods.

_Alright,_ Haruka says, as if those few seconds are enough to convince him that somehow, Makoto presenting him with a Nintendo 3DS upon parting is the most obvious thing in the world.

 

 

 

The first time Haruka comes back, there are seven new Miis at the Plaza.

_Sorry_ , he says, staring at the 3DS with a furrowed brow, _I forgot to recharge._

Most of them are from South Korea. There's a boy from Canada, and a girl with a Yoshi hat from Singapore. All of the Miis line up on the plaza, standing behind the cheerfully smiling avatar Ren made the day Makoto got the console.

He spends an afternoon staring at the virtual people. Wonders, in passing, where Haruka might have run into them. On his way to practice, in the crowd of a contest, out on the town? It's silly, but thinking about it makes him happy, like the shuffling little avatars exist in his world too; like all those chance encounters are something the two of them now share.

He doesn't tell Haruka this, though.

Instead, when Haruka leaves again, Makoto hands him the console again and gives him a second charger.

 

 

 

The next time the Mii count has gone up by twenty.

_Rin dragged me to a street fair. Also, I finished playing the game that was in the cartridge._

In the evening, he flicks through every new person the plaza, reading the dreams and wishes listed in each profile. Closes his eyes and imagines the street fair, the swarm of sounds and faces in a crowd.

It's silly, but thinking about it makes it easier, like part of him is in that moment too; pushing past the strangers, feeling the breeze that tugs on Haruka's hair. Even if it is not a memory that's his, perhaps, one of these days it will be.

By the end of the week he gives Haruka a new game. It's one about teenagers who fight monsters with fashionable badges in a parallel dimension in Shibuya. _The streets are pretty accurately modeled_ , he says, _There's even a café near a place we once went._

He hopes it will make Haruka think of home.

 

 

 

Ten new Miis from Fukuoka.

Fourteen, from Victoria, Canada.

He smiles at the two puzzles Haruka's completed, and the crown his Mii has started wearing after Haruka won it from completing the Street Pass Quest. _The monster was holding you hostage_ , Haruka explains, _So I killed it._

It makes him laugh. It makes him laugh, yet somehow part of it still stings; because on the way home Haruka dozes off against his shoulder on the train, the lights of the city stretch the darkness, and somehow he just knows it's not enough.

(Not enough, to turn on that light green handheld to relive an artificial life; not enough to sit and wait to be saved.)

But what can he say?

_Ran mailed this to me the other week_. _We all used to play this game together years ago – you know, when you always beat my Marth with your Squirtle._

That's all he says.

A flicker of something untraceable passes on Haruka's face, until he finally nods.

 

 

 

The next day he comes home after work and the handheld sits charging on the table.

_He must have just forgotten it,_ Rin sighs over the phone, the echo of a hallway distorting the line. _There's no way he would have left it otherwise. Haru takes it everywhere he goes._

Something still doesn't feel right.

_You think he got bored of the games I gave him?_ he wonders aloud, and there's a snort at the other end like his concern is understandable yet unwarranted all at once.

_He spends less time gaming than he does making notes on them. Seriously, one time I swear he spent three hours drawing something on that tiny screen of the 3DS._

He frowns.

After the call ends, he kneels down by the table, stares at the handheld, then turns it on.

In the top left corner, there is something called _game notes_ that he never noticed before; when he hovers the cursor over it, a symbol of a pen gently rotates around and around.

He presses A.

 

 

 

It's not empty.

Instead, the screen comes alive with countless of tiny panels, each bursting with colour and life. Even from the thumbnails, he can tell most are drawings, but some are so crammed full with writing it feels like the characters are about to spill off the side of the screen.

He opens the first one.

It's from South Korea, a drawing of a sunrise breaking in through the window. Even with the crude colours and lines of a stylus, the light that floods off the picture and over to his hands feel real; the details of the horizon are painstakingly accurate, as though capturing that moment was the most important thing in the world.

_Couldn't sleep_ , it says underneath.

The next drawings are more sketchy, like something done in transit. A woman on the train playing with a child on her lap, drawn in black and white.

The shadows are still intricate, the dynamic palpable, and he does not need to close his eyes to imagine the atmosphere anymore.

 

 

 

Australia.

Lights of the street fair bouncing off a quick sketch of Rin, then a detailed rendition of a pair of koi fish swimming in a decorative pond. The dark hues of the ocean, at what seems to be the crack of dawn – and a panel filled with crisp handwriting in clean lines.

_Couldn't sleep again. Thought I might call, but didn't want to wake you up. Drew this instead._

Between them, something hastily smudged over before replaced by:

_I hope you see it when I come home._

 

 

Fukuoka.

A cat sleeping on the side of a road. A rainy view from the window of a restaurant, and a hastier doodle with the word _sorry_ scribbled beneath where any patience to finish drawing a plate of mackerel had run out.

_I found the café in the game you gave me._

_It's too silent without you._

 

 

Canada.

The arch of an airport, a sleeping old man with his head lulled over the uncomfortable seat of the waiting lounge.

And words.

_I wonder if you ever saw these. You haven't said anything yet. Maybe it's not why you asked, but I wanted you to see everything. To carry it all with me. So I could show you._

_Maybe I should have told you. But I couldn't think of what to say._

_Maybe that's why I drew it instead._

 

 

 

He nearly drops the console when a frenzied rustle pulls at the door.

It's almost as startling to find Haruka scampering in, something akin to panic strewn on his face. It can't be, though – not panic, not Haruka, because few things ever leave him that distraught and the plane he boarded must already be miles off the ground.

The halt as their eyes meet is all Haruka, though. The re-composure, the split pause, the turn of his head.

_I forgot something. So I couldn't go._

It's all Haruka says.

_(Couldn't go, without taking you with me.)_

It's all Haruka doesn't say, but words that nonetheless ring clear; in his voice, in each drawing, in the way his gaze finally trails back and holds firm.

But it's alright.

Because the hands that reach out with the light green handheld are just as firm, fingers brushing Haruka's with reassurance; and when Makoto tilts Haruka's wrist to press his lips on his knuckles, there's a laughter in his breath that no longer stings.

_Then_ , he says, _Please take this with you when you leave._

He doesn't need the rest of the words either, for Haruka to know.

_(You don't need to do anything,_

_just carry me with you, wherever you go.)_

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really happy this giveaway gave me the excuse to step outside my comfort zones and write something I rarely would have gotten the chance to. It was supposed to be ridiculously cute, but as with all things that hit close to home for me, well, it turned out bittersweet instead. Maybe one day I'll rectify this with all the companion fics.
> 
> (I didn't end up listening to Marina this time. Instead, this song has a companion in Tory Amos's _Carry_ , for which the title doubles.)


End file.
